- PTI chief says will shut down Faisalabad on Dec 8 if govt fails to set up judicial commission before announced date
- Says willing to talk with govt but won’t retract demand for PM’s resignation
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Wednesday threatened that he will not call off his plan to shutdown Faisalabad if the government fails to set up a judicial commission to probe into alleged poll rigging before December 8.
Addressing participants of the sit-in at D-Chowk, he said, “If the government fails to set up a judicial commission before December 8, I want to make it clear that PTI will implement its plan in Faisalabad.”
The party had altered its ‘Plan C’ in less than 24 hours after its announcement on Sunday. The party leadership on Monday decided to observe a strike in Lahore on Dec 15, instead of Dec 4 as planned earlier, and shut down the entire country on Dec 18, instead of Dec 16.
However, no change was made in the protest schedules for Faisalabad on Dec 8, and Karachi on Dec 12.
The plan for Lahore shutdown has been changed reportedly because the Jamaatud Dawa has planned an event in the city on Dec 4 and 5.
In Wednesday’s speech, Khan claimed that the PML-N government backtracked from the dialogue with his party after the decision of PAT chief Tahirul Qadri to call off their sit-in in Islamabad.
He also alleged that the PML-N government had registered over 100 FIRs against the PTI leadership in Punjab.
“Before joining PTI, Ijaz Chaudhary was a very noble MNA of PML-N… but soon after joining our party, FIA raided his residence in Mandi Bahauddin on a fake FIR,” Khan claimed.
The cricketer-turned-politician also condemned the violence of Lahore police on blind people on Davis Road on Wednesday.
“In democracy, it is constitutional right of everyone to stage peaceful protest… blind people were demanding their rightful quota in jobs and it is unfortunate that the PML-N government used police against them,” the PTI chief added.
RESIGNATION OF ELECTION COMMISSIONERS:
While demanding the resignation of election commissioners for a transparent investigation into election rigging, Khan said the PTI would not step down from its demand for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s resignation.
Expressing resolve to continue exposing corruption, Khan said that they were keeping track of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) officials and would put the people responsible for polls rigging behind the bars.
Khan claimed that attempts were being made by the ECP to conceal some key facts regarding polls. He said that Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, together with the ECP secretary, said on August 18 that 180 million ballot papers were published. He added that PTI provided evidence on November 28 that additional 5.3 million ballot papers were published.
The PTI chief also called for protection of all printing presses and the election record including ballot papers so that it could be used for investigation into the rigging.